Two journalists were recently arrested this week by police at the scene of a fatal car crash in Hamilton Canada.

This hits home for me because I live in Hamilton. As a Canadian, the issue of overzealous police arresting photographers and journalists for the crime of photography always seemed like a US issue or a problem in meaner parts of the world.

To be honest, I never thought that something like this could happen in my home town.

Half a year ago, Wyoming passed one of the most controversial laws concerning photography ever (and agriculture for that matter) – the Data Trespass Law. The law has lots of legalese, but in a shell, the law makes it illegal to “…photograph or otherwise preserve information in any form from open land which is submitted or intended to be submitted to any agency of the state or federal government“.

Now Wyoming is being sued [pdf] by broad coalition of environmental, justice, and animal rights groups challenging the law to be unconstitutional.

https://youtu.be/TSmWDOAigkg
I don’t know much about Australian politics, and I barely give a rodent’s rump about American politics, to be honest. But, from what I’ve gathered, Peta Credlin, chief of staff to Prime Minister Tony Abbott, is a bit of a hot topic with our friends down under. (What’s with you Commonwealth countries always electing a Tony into office anyway?)

Yesterday was no exception as Credlin demanded AAP photographer Tracey Nearmy delete images she had captured of the staffer at a media event hosted in the Endeavour Hills police station in Melbourne.[Read More…]

I know that we have been reporting many anti photography laws lately. It’s a drag. But sometimes, the law makers surprise us and actually work towards making the world a better place for photographers..

This new Colorado law is called “Stop Police Interference Cop Incident Recordings”. The summary of the proposed bill stated:

“The bill creates a private right of action against a peace officer’s employing law enforcement agency if a person records an incident involving a peace officer and a peace officer destroys the recording or seizes the recording without receiving consent or obtaining a warrant or if the peace officer intentionally interferes with the recording or retaliates against the person making the recording. The person who recorded the peace officer incident is entitled to actual damages, a civil penalty of $15,000, and attorney fees and costs.”

We are happy to announce to our police-stalking shutterbugs that House Bill 15-1290 was signed into law by Colorado governor Hickenlooper (gotta love a man of power with that name) on May 20th.

Wyoming is unquestionably a gorgeous state and one that’s coveted by landscape and wildlife photographers around the world. With Yellowstone National Park, the Grand Tetons, or one of the other vast and countless parks, it’s one of the United State’s more untouched states, providing photographers a wide offering of natural backdrops to photograph. However, according to a report published by Slate, a new bill (SF0012) has gone into effect which may have some photographers facing up to five years jail time.

“photos are a type of data, and the new law makes it a crime to gather data about the condition of the environment across most of the state if you plan to share that data with the state or federal government.”

As photographer’s rights continue to make their way to the headlines, the Washington Post chimed in on the subject with a public service announcement of sorts informing photographers of the restrictions in which many commercial airlines are beginning to enforce. While it may not come as a surprise to many of you that airline employees have the right to tell photographers to turn off their cameras, the lack of an actual policy may be slightly more unexpected.[Read More…]

In the United States, the work of photographers and photojournalists is protected under the 1st Amendment which states: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. And, in a perfect world, the constitutional rights granted by the amendment would never be violated. But, perfect the world is not and it seems like photographers are being unjustly accosted on a regular basis.

Think of all the news stories you’ve read that pretty much read the same: a photographer from Any City, USA was arrested, threatened with arrest, threatened with seizure of equipment, or otherwise harassed for exercising their First Amendment right of taking photos in a public place. A quick search on DIYP alone using the “Photography Is Not A Crime” keyword yields you a dizzying amount of such stories. Not to mention the motions made by the Federal Government, which restrict and sometimes prohibit photography in National Parks.

I’m willing to admit that not every single case of harassment towards a photographer is unjust. In reality, there’s always that one jackass who ruins it for everyone, but a good number of these types of cases violate the rights of photographers and, quite frankly, we’re fed up.

Hopefully, none of you will ever actually be in a situation where this would be useful, but Mickey Osterreicher, General Counsel for The National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), sat down to make a quick, but helpful, informational video regarding the legal rights of photojournalists. In the video, which is a 3 minute long gem of a sound bite, Osterreicher, explains several different scenarios photographers working in public places often find themselves in and what they can do to prevent interactions with the police from escalating.

In a memo handed down to New York City Police precincts on Wednesday, the Chief of Department, Philip Banks, reminded his staff that photographers do indeed have the right to photograph on duty police officers. This comes two long years after the Washington DC police force issued a strikingly similar notice to its officers. It also follows the tragic death of a Staten Island man that was killed after being placed in a chokehold by a member of the NYPD. The memo instructs police officers to not interfere or interrupt photographers unless the are explicitly interfering with operations being performed by the officers.

“Members of the public are legally allowed to record police interactions. Intentional interference such as blocking or obstructing cameras or ordering the person to cease constitutes censorship and also violates the First Amendment.”

It’s amazing how perfect the narrative of this story is; Americans love suing, and who not better to be the plaintiff than one of our country’s biggest corporations? Walmart, a company that builds breeding grounds for American stereotypes (and supermarkets), is filing a lawsuit against the wife of a now-deceased photographer. What’s the dispute? They want the rights to photographs taken by the late husband and his father of the Walton family themselves.

Clinton Lofthouse is a Photographer, Retoucher and Digital Artist based in the United Kingdom, who specialises in creative retouching and composites. Proud 80's baby, reader of graphic novels and movie geek!
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